Interior Design with a Toddler

"My house is me and I am it. 

My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams." 

Hubs and I love our home.

We love to decorate it; we love to be in it.

We're what you would call homebodies.

However, we've noticed that now that Toph is fully mobile, our design style has changed a bit.

 The cords to our blinds are now hung up on a nail next to window.

If we don't hang them up, Toph likes to hold on to them like he's rappelling down a mountain cliff.

 Our curtains (made by my lovely mama) looped around the curtain rod because Toph fancies himself Tarzan and will swing from them while saying, "Wheeeeee!"

The ottoman is pushed against the surround sound equipment,

while the toy box is pushed to the middle of the room to try 

and distract him from the surround sound.

(It didn't work.)

(I know you're jealous of our cardboard toy box/play pen.)

The big comfy chair is pushed against the entry to the stairwell because

he broke the baby gate.

As you can see, he quickly found something else to get into in the form

of my coffee and beloved iPad.

And you can see that he's not thrilled with being thwarted so many times.

I'm confident he'll think of a thousand more things tomorrow to get into.

Yes, our sense of design may have changed a bit.

But not our sense of home.  

We bought it when he was a mere twinkle in our eye;

unwittingly, we were building it for him the entire time.

 "My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams."

--"The Big Orange Splot" by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

Decorating Ideas?

As I type, I am sitting in our office/computer room. In the near future, this will also turn into an office/computer/playroom. I need to redecorate this room; it needs to be more organized, more functional, warmer and give a better first impression. It's the first room you see when you walk in our house, unless you look to your left and see our still vacant dining room...let's not go there right now, okay?  Right now, it's our "brokedown" college room. Meaning, most of the furniture in here is from our college days, which has moved so much it is brokedown. However, there is one exception:

 

Imagine it with the matching ottoman, we also have that.  This chair will be the centerpiece of the room.  There is also a span of windows complete with a windowseat that span the front wall of this room.  I don't have a great picture of it, but here the boys are on it:

Aw.  Anyway, there are two entrances to this room; one of them consists of two French doors, which open to our family room (TV room).
I realize I ought to have more pictures, but I don't and it's borderline late and I just need some decorating advice.  We're talking window treatments, we're talking turning that window seat into a comfy place to sit.  We're talking giving me ideas for a cheap but sturdy and cute desk with plenty of room to organize.  We're talking a nice bookshelf that's tall so that the lower shelves can be dedicated to kid books and maybe house some baskets for toys. We're talking an organization system that will house important documents.  We're talking a way to organize toys.  We're talking a cute paint color that goes with the chair but doesn't turn the place into an overwhelming place to be.  I'll try to post more pics soon, but in the meantime, put your thinking caps on.  We've got a project to do.